Reflections

The last 12 months have been months of great reflection for me.  This post is me being very open and honest.  2012 was a journey of faith for me.  I saw some pretty dark days, some even in the last few weeks.  I did not get through this year by my strength.  God and I went through some battles.  I never want anyone to think this year was easy for me or that I never had bad days.  I asked a lot of unanswerable questions.  The biggest one was, "WHY?"  I don't understand why Steve and I were thrown into this battle.  We had just given our lives to join the mission field.  Why this?  Why now?  Some people believe that just the fact that pain and suffering exists in the world suggests that there is no God.  Could God remove all pain and suffering from the world if He wanted to?  I think He could, but would we still have our free will.  God could have created us as robots forcing us to love and follow Him, but He didn't.  He wants us to choose Him.

This year shook my faith to the core, but as hard as it was I think I'm getting better for it.  Don't misunderstand me, I'm angry and God and I have had some talks that would my mother cringe.  I don't think God is afraid of our angry when we don't understand.  In fact, I think he wants us to come to Him with those questions.  I hate the Christian platitude, "everything happens for a reason."  Whether that's true or not, platitudes like that are rarely helpful. 

I had a friend, that I've never met in person, described her relationship with God as "shaky."  She was searching and, who knows, she may have been almost there, but now she is even farther away. 
-->Her words "I will admit, mine was shaky before we lost our baby and that loss is really what put the final nail in the coffin for me."  Those words made me angry.  Not angry for what happened to us, but for what happened to her.  Why? Why did you take her perfect baby  when you could have used it to remove a nail, instead of giving her another one.  I don't understand.  God, please don't let her put that final nail in the coffin forever.  Even though I went through some angry, shaky times this year, when a nail was offered to me I somehow always gave it back.  I know that Satan would have loved it if I gave him the satisfaction of walking away from God.  How many other people around are putting that final nail in?  I don't have any answers for them.  I'm walking this same journey of life that they are. 

What conclusion have I come to for me?  There is so much hurt and evil in the world that I don't understand.  There are questions that I won't ever understand until I'm standing in front of Jesus.  I think God grieves with us.  He knows what it's like to lose a child.  I believe that if I walk away and give up my relationship with God He would grieve even more for that.  I am going to continue to cast my anxieties on God because I really believe that He cares for me.  I don't think I would have it through this year without that belief.

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